Write for SoraNews24!

SoraNews24 is always looking for new talent to join our team and help us grow. If you’ve got the skills, we want to hear from you!

Thanks to the efforts of our full-time staff and team of contributing writers, we’ve grown from a site that published just a handful of posts per week to one that shares up to 20 stories a day and receives millions of page views a month from readers all over the world. We partner with such websites as Anime News Network, Tokyo Otaku Mode, Japan Today and Business Insider, and are always looking for new ways to grow and improve our site.

If you’re interested in joining our close-knit team, check out the requirements below!

【What we’re looking for】

People who:

– are passionate, prolific, professional writers who have a knack for telling a story
– keep up to date with trends and news events in Japan and Asia
– have a solid knowledge of Internet culture and social media
– can speak/read Japanese at an upper-intermediate level (JLPT level “N2”) or better
– have a good sense of humour

*We are also seeking writers who can read Chinese or Korean, though they must also be skilled in writing quality English-language copy and be able to communicate in Japanese at conversational level.

【What we’re NOT looking for】

People who just want to do straight translation. In the beginning, SoraNews24 mostly translated content produced by our Japanese sister-site for an English-speaking audience, but those days are long gone. Now, the majority of our content is completely original, with writers researching breaking stories all over the Japanese web before producing their own article in English. Although a solid grasp of Japanese is essential, and some formal translation experience would no doubt prove useful, we are more interested in individuals who can turn that source material into an engaging story of their own.

【How to apply】

If you’d like to work for us, we’d like you to show us three things:

1. Your grasp of Japanese

Please send us a direct translation of the Japanese article linked below, sticking as close to the original article as you can but presenting it in a manner that would be both suitable and entertaining for our readers:

We’d also like to see an original English-language article of your own of approximately 400–500 words. You can base this on an existing news story or start from scratch, it’s entirely up to you, but you should use this opportunity to show us that—as well as being able to tell a good story—you know your lies from your lays, your brings from your takes, and your colons from your semicolons.

3. Your resume

Send two copies of your resume (one in English, one in Japanese) so that we can learn a little bit about you.